


More Than

by mostlyvoide



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:57:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlyvoide/pseuds/mostlyvoide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world of alphas, betas and omegas, it’s a little bit more complicated for Barry Allen, even before the superspeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than

When Barry meets Oliver Queen, he doesn’t just lie about his intentions. He lies about his identity.

At least, that’s what Oliver accuses him of doing, because apparently who he is will always be summed up by a letter from the Greek alphabet. 

_Omega._

It's later, after he’s been drugged and dragged off and discovered the identity of Starling’s masked vigilante and then _saved his life_ , that Barry looks at Oliver Queen’s prone form, worse for wear but alive and thinks,

_this omega just saved your life._

  


1.

 

On the train home from Starling, Barry thinks about the fact that both Diggle and Felicity, an alpha and a beta, hadn’t had the power to save Oliver. How _he_ \-- an _omega_ \-- had been the only one with the skills to bring Oliver back from the brink of death.

It makes him feel bigger than he’s ever felt, and he feels brave enough to start a conversation with a white-haired man who is obviously both an alpha and an intellectual instead of spending the train ride trying to make his body take up as little space as possible.

He sits up straight; nods and smiles at the people who lock eyes with him. 

He still fumbles as he leaves the train, words falling from his mouth gracelessly like a collapsing building, but he is stuttering to a _stranger,_ not to Iris or Joe or Captain Singh, and isn’t that amazing?

He’s grinning as he steps out onto the crowded station, breathing in the mixture of ocean and smog that is unique to Central City. His eyes scan the crowd for any familiar faces, even though he’d told Iris and Joe not to bother with picking him up.

Sure enough, his eyes soon catch Joe, leaning against the door of his car. Joe nods when they spot each other, and Barry drags his suitcases across the crowded station, and he isn’t as mindful as he usually is, doesn’t avoid brushing past people quite so intensely.

He wonders if people are looking at him and thinking ‘he’s tall’ or ‘his hair looks nice’ instead of ‘he’s obviously an omega’.

He wonders if people can see that he’s more than an omega, now that he’s proven it.

 

2.

 

Before he can even tell Iris how he feels, watching Harrison Wells make a historic speech, two things happen.

First, Iris tells him how proud she is of both of them, for overcoming alpha and omega stereotypes and being best friends without romance or biology getting in the way.

Then his bag gets stolen.

Iris starts chasing after the culprit immediately while Barry fumbles for his phone in his haste to call the police. The words _overcoming alpha and omega stereotypes_ rings around in his head, even as he spouts off the address for the venue they’re in and tells the tinny voice on the other end of the line about the bag-snatcher.

Rejection feels like a lightning strike, he thinks.

  


3.

 

When Barry had been growing up, there were no omega superheroes. Captain America was an alpha through and through, even when he had been a skinny thing who couldn't walk up stairs without getting an asthma attack.

There are still no omega superheroes, though there are some who masquerade as one in their ‘civilian’ lives in order to avoid suspicion about their secret identities. 

But in real life, Barry Allen isn’t only the first omega superhero, he’s the first superhero _period_. 

Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon both stare at him in awe over his healed wrist, and he can’t help but grin at their shock at him becoming the impossible. 

He's faster than the speed of sound. His fractured wrist healed in three hours. But he feels like he's impossible because of  _more_ than that, because people have already imagined superspeed and invulnerability and quick healing.

But they've never imagined  _him,_ an  _omega_ , possessing all of that. 

Yet here he is.

 

 

4.

 

Iris is dating a beta named Eddie, who treats Barry with nothing but respect and kindness. In return, Barry beats him up after being mind-whammied by a meta. 

He feels guilty, and he gapes in shock at everything he’d done while 'under the influence'. The things he’d said, the violence he’d been able to capable of. Caitlin says ‘you ... didn't act like yourself.' 'You weren't you anymore.' 

Dr. Wells mutters something about how interesting it is that everyone was affected by the meta-human in the same way.

Barry knows what everyone’s trying to say. They’re surprised that omegas had the same capacity for violence as everyone else.

Despite his guilt for what he did to Eddie, he feels proud of having done it. He feels proud of the woman being comforted by the confused officer who couldn't believe an omega could fire a gun, mind controlled or not. He reali

The realisation that none of them is ever _just_ an omega is freeing.

 

5.

 

The teleporter he was after is an omega, and Barry almost didn't want to catch her. He does, because she’s abusing her abilities and he has a responsibility, but the way her voice catches when she tells Barry that her alpha had just left her makes him want to tell her to just blink out of existence and start a new life. 

Caitlin comments about the crazy things people do for love, and Barry answers something sickly sweet in return, but inside he thinks _how is she supposed to know better?_

He thinks about how he’d saved Oliver Queen’s life, and how that one small thing made him feel _more_. He thinks about people who have never had the opportunity to have a moment like that in their life, about Shawna, who was given something so special and could only think about being with her alpha.

He catches the bad guy, but he still feels like he’s failed.

 

6.

 

Barry moves smoothly against the crowd gathered outside, muttering a few mumbled ‘sorry’s whenever he jostles someone particularly hard, but otherwise paying no attention to anything but his goal -- the dead body lying on top of the white-tiled floor.

He sees Joe and Captain Singh waiting for him, and he expects an admonishment for being late, but instead the Captain only quirks a lip up at him, says “good job, Allen”, before turning away to talk to a witness.

Barry lets a confused expression flit over his face and glances over at Joe, his expression trying to convey the question ‘did he really just compliment me?’ without having to actually say it. Joe only nods, his expression satisfied and calm, like Captain Singh complimented Barry every day, _which he didn’t_. 

Barry shakes his head and leans down to examine the body, a 32-year-old woman in red heels and a black dress, checking under her fingernails and scanning the area around her body for evidence, before bagging everything and trudging over to Joe. 

“What was that all about?” he asks, and his face twitches in the general direction of Captain Singh. He’s got superspeed and he’s trying assertiveness, but Captain Singh terrified even the alphas, and Barry felt no shame at the way he couldn’t even nod his head towards the Captain’s direction in fear of being decapitated.

“He’s just proud of you, Barry,” Joe says, calm as always.

Barry’s sure Captain Singh doesn’t know he’s The Flash, so he’s not sure what he’d be proud of Barry about, but Joe has _that face_ , the one that makes him looks a little bit like the Mona Lisa, which means he’s not going to answer the question Barry really wanted answered.

 

7.

 

Caitlin tells him that it’s time for them to find someone else to be crazy over. 

Barry thinks he wants to live a life where he doesn’t need to be crazy over anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is over at riceandshine|tumblr, if you're interested.


End file.
